And if he wasn’t so busy trying to single-handedly fend off the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday night in a 2-1 overtime victory largely dominated by the visitors, the 35-year-old probably would have tried to chip in.

But in the end, it was Mark Giordano that eventually got the job done when Matthew Tkachuk pick-pocketed Sidney Crosby to set up the Flames captain with 2:19 gone in the extra frame.

The finish was impressive, especially because the Penguins had tied the score 1-1 with 1:12 ticks left in the third period when Patric Hornqvist’s tip sent Kris Letang’s shot past a furious Smith.

Up until that point, it looked like Sean Monahan’s garbage goal with 4:07 remaining in the final frame was going to stand up as the game-winner.

But Smith was the unanimous hero on this night, facing 41 shots in regulation from the defending Stanley Cup champions who, by the way, won 3-2 against the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place just 24 hours before.

In the end, he made 43 saves on 44 shots.

“That was one of the best goalie performances I’ve seen in a long time,” said Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan whose club improved to 7-6-0. “It gives you confidence going into any building … when you know you have a goalie like that, and you’re sitting on the bench playing, there is a sense of assurance that you’ve got a guy in there that’s battling every night.

Mike Smith makes one of his 43 saves against the Penguins.

“He’s one of the leagues best goalies, and that’s a big thing.”

A large chunk of his stellar play came in the third period — exactly when you’d expect a tired team would drift off.

He made a blocker save on Brian Dumoulin off the rush 1:10 into the final stanza, stopped Jake Guentzel on a partial breakaway at the halfway mark and stuck out his blocker again with 5:22 remaining when Phil Kessel released a shot while fending off a back-checking Mark Giordano.

Pittsburgh was the third straight team that has come into Calgary on the second half of back-to-backs. And, prior to Thursday’s game, the Penguins were 0-4 on the second night this season having been dominated by lopsided scores such as 10-1, 7-1 and 7-1.

“Early in the game, ‘G’ was out there for three minutes, I think,” Smith said. “They came at us pretty hard. Obviously we want to clean that up. We want to be better at home. We want to have better starts.

“That was a team that hadn’t had much success at back-to-backs. They were hungry to try and get one (Thursday).”

That wasn’t the only factor working in Calgary’s favour.

They were also facing former the Edmonton Oil Kings goalie Jarry who had a total of one National Hockey League performance before Thursday’s clash. To start the game, the Flames made it easy for him.

Capped off by a terrible shift by the Flames’ fourth line, the team spent the entire first five minutes in their own zone, and it went steadily downhill from there.

Mikael Backlund took a tripping penalty and, by the end of the Penguins’ power-play, the shots were 14-3 for the visitors. With very little even-strength pressure on Sidney Crosby & Co., the Flames were eventually out-shot 19-8.

“You have no choice,” Smith said. “As a goalie, you’re standing back there, and you can’t really control what happens in front of you. So there’s no sense in worrying about the shot-clock. You just worry about the next save. I know it’s cliche coming from a goalie, but it’s the truth.”

Smith seemed to be duelling all night with Carl Hagelin, who had a nice backhand shot on a first-period breakaway that was tossed aside by the Flames goalie.

Then, five minutes into the second period, Bryan Rust nearly scored on a chance in front, but the puck slid behind Smith along the goalmouth (!), and he was able to smother it.

Shortly after, he made one of those “pull-your-groin” type left-pad saves on a point shot from Letang (the uber-flexible Smith didn’t actually pull his groin, by the way.)

The ice tilted back in the Flames favour for a portion of the second period when Calgary had three powerplays, two of which were drawn by Johnny Gaudreau and one — near the end of the frame — drawn by Matthew Tkachuk.

Ryan Reaves had thrown Tkachuk into the boards near the Flames’ bench, and, on the play, the 19-year-old winger looked like he hit his ribs and exited the game. Reaves was delivered a roughing penalty with 47 seconds left in the second period.

As for their penalty kill — which went one-for-one — Gulutzan pointed to Smith again.

“I think as the game went on, too, the way we came back for Smitty is a big thing for our team. We showed him that we can play with the top team. We responded in a positive way, and it’s going to be good for our group moving forward.”

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